The technology of the present disclosure relates to an optical scanning device and an image forming apparatus including the same.
An image forming apparatus employing an electrophotographic system such as a copy machine and a printer includes an optical scanning device that emits light for forming an electrostatic latent image on a photoreceptor.
The optical scanning device has a housing that receives a polygon mirror, an image forming lens and the like. The housing is formed with light emitting ports that emit light. The light emitting port includes an opening extending in a predetermined direction. The light emitting port is closed by a transparent cover such as a dustproof glass.
However, when dirt, dust and the like due to toner and the like are attached to the surface of the transparent cover, there is a problem that the optical characteristics of the optical scanning device are deteriorated and thus image failure occurs. In this regard, there has been proposed a cleaning mechanism that regularly cleans the surface of the dustproof glass.
The cleaning mechanism has a screw shaft extending along the transparent cover, and a holding member screwed with the screw shaft to hold a cleaning member.
The holding member has a cylindrical nut part screwed with the screw shaft, and an arm part that extends from the nut part in a direction crossing the screw shaft and holds the cleaning member. The nut part is provided on the inner peripheral surface thereof with a protrusion part that engages with a spiral groove formed on the outer peripheral surface of the screw shaft. The spiral groove of the outer peripheral surface of the screw shaft and the protrusion part of the inner peripheral surface of the nut part are engaged with each other and the screw shaft is rotated, so that the holding member moves along the screw shaft. The holding member reciprocally moves along a predetermined movement path when a motor is rotated forward and backward. By so doing, the cleaning member reciprocally moves while abutting the surface of the transparent cover, so that the surface of the transparent cover is cleaned by the cleaning member.